AMA cites Mass. malpractice premiums

Massachusetts has become the 20th state with a medical liability crisis, the American Medical Association said. The AMA, an advocacy group for physicians, added Massachusetts to its list of crisis states because of a recent report from its local affiliate, the Massachusetts Medical Society. The society concluded that some doctors are no longer performing trauma surgery or delivering babies because they can't afford the malpractice premiums, which have been soaring. Also, a New York-based insurer, Medical Liability Mutual Insurance Co., is leaving Massachusetts. The AMA defines crisis states as those where patients have lost access to care from certain doctors. Both the medical society and the AMA are pushing for passage of laws limiting jury awards to injured patients who sue their doctors. (Liz Kowalczyk)

Casual Male, Foreman sign for rematch

Casual Male Retail Group said it is expanding its relationship with pitchman George Foreman beyond North America to include worldwide rights to his clothing line. The Canton retail group said the expanded deal also includes a line of George Foreman footwear as well as two additional three-year options to extend the relationship from 2012 to 2018. Next month marks the one-year anniversary of Casual Male's relationship with Foreman. The boxer sells his clothing line exclusively at Casual Male Big & Tall stores. (Naomi Aoki)

Jones Apparel bid for Maxwell gets boost

Jones Apparel Group Inc., which is making a hostile $354 million offer for Maxwell Shoe Co., said proxy adviser Institutional Shareholder Services recommended the replacement of Maxwell's board with five directors nominated by Jones. Jones, maker of Nine West shoes and Anne Klein apparel, will give up its takeover bid by Sunday if no agreement is reached or it doesn't receive enough shareholder votes to replace Maxwell's board, the company said. Maxwell entered into a confidentiality agreement with Jones to discuss a higher offer after rejecting a sweetened $354 million bid, Maxwell said in a regulatory filing last week. Jones raised its cash bid last month to $22.50 a share from $20. Jones's offer ''has reached a level where Maxwell management should give shareholders the opportunity to vote," ISS said in an e-mail. ISS is the largest adviser to money managers on proxy votes. (Bloomberg)

Endeca closes $15m round of funding

Endeca Technologies Inc., a Cambridge maker of Google-style search engine software for businesses to use for searching through their own internal digital content, closed a $15 million mezzanine funding round that brings its total capital raised to $45 million. Lehman Brothers and Granite Global Ventures led the round, with prior investors Ampersand Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Venrock Associates, and DN Capital adding to their earlier stakes. Endeca has sold its ''search and guided navigation" systems to customers including Barnes & Noble, IBM Corp., and Bank of America's Quick & Reilly brokerage unit, as well as US government customers including the Army and Library of Congress. (Peter J. Howe)

THE NATION
Fed OK's J.P. Morgan-Bank One merger

The Federal Reserve cleared the way for Wall Street powerhouse J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. to combine with and absorb Chicago-based Bank One Corp., forming the nation's second-largest bank with more than $1 trillion in assets. The Fed's board of governors, including chairman Alan Greenspan, voted 6-0 to approve the merger, finding that the investment firm's acquisition of the bank would not threaten competition or unduly concentrate banking resources. The $58 billion deal will erase about 10,000 jobs by 2006 and the Bank One name sooner, in one of a series of consolidations in the financial services industry. Some experts believe the combination will shift the US banking industry landscape, setting off a cascade of deals among midsized institutions while creating opportunities for community banks to steal customers away. (AP)

Treasury stock went to Rigas account

In August 2000, Adelphia Communications Corp. treasury stock valued at close to $11 million was deposited into an account in the name of the Rigas family, according to a document presented in the trial of four former executives. ''I understood it to be for the Buffalo Sabres," defendant Michael Mulcahey testified about the stock. Last week, Mulcahey testified that he authorized the deposit of 325,000 shares of Adelphia treasury stock into a bank account for the benefit of the hockey team. Adelphia founder John Rigas and his family owned the Buffalo Sabres of the National Hockey League. John Rigas is on trial in New York with two of his sons -- Timothy and Michael -- and Mulcahey, another former executive of the cable television company, on charges of conspiracy and fraud. They are accused of using Adelphia funds to line the Rigases' pockets and misleading investors and the public about the company's finances. (Dow Jones/AP)

Corporate bankruptcies expected to slow

Corporate bankruptcies will probably hit a six-year low in 2004 because of improved economic conditions, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers study. The world's biggest accounting firm predicted that about 110 US public companies will file for bankruptcy in 2004, the lowest total since 83 sought protection from creditors in 1997. Public company bankruptcies last year dropped to 133 from 189 in 2002, the report said. A record 257 public companies filed for bankruptcy in 2001. Public company bankruptcy filings in 2004 will probably be concentrated in the metals, telecommunications equipment, machinery, and transportation equipment industries, Pricewaterhouse vice chairman R. Carter Pate wrote in the study." (Bloomberg)

Telecom VP fears Oracle-PeopleSoft deal

A Nextel Communications Inc. executive testified that he feared a merger between Oracle Corp. and PeopleSoft Inc. would cost the wireless provider millions of dollars and force it to switch its business software system to one made by Oracle. Richard Cichanowicz, a Nextel vice president, said that in a combined company Oracle would have no motivation to upgrade the PeopleSoft system that Nextel currently uses to manage its finances and human resources. The testimony, in a federal court in San Francisco, came at the start of the second week of a trial in which the US government is seeking to block Oracle's $7.7 billion hostile takeover bid of PeopleSoft. The government argues that a merger would cut out competition and raise the price of software that major companies and government agencies use to operate their human resource and financial operations. (Reuters)

THE WORLD
Ahold reports $490m loss in 1st quarter

Global retailer Ahold NV lost $490 million in the first quarter because of one-time losses on businesses sold in Brazil and Thailand in a restructuring that followed an accounting scandal. The loss by Ahold, which owns the Stop & Shop and Giant supermarkets and the food distributor U.S. Foodservice in the United States, contrasts with a profit of $101.3 million a year ago. Excluding an exceptional write-off of $545 million from the sale of two Brazilian units and operations in Thailand, Ahold had an operating loss of $175 million versus an operating profit of $484.7 million a year ago. Sales in the three-month period fell 11.3 percent to $18.7 billion from $20.9 billion a year ago. (AP)